Cocoa Village

I am fresh out of things to write about today, so I will share my Email Lament with you, which I wrote in protest of all the junk that gets forwarded to me.

Email Lament

Please! No more flowers,
No more Bunnies,
No more promises of money!

No more “Send this
To eight friends
Then you’ll have big bucks to spend!”

No more “Microsoft will pay,
They have dough to give away.”

I can pray without restraint,
Don’t need help from clip-art saints.

That kid’s not missing,
She’s just fine.
That scam began in ’99.

I’m sick of scares, so send me none.
Go check your facts at Snopes.com.

Send this on or trash today,
Your luck won't change much either way.

Homage to Dali, Mixed Media

My painting group, Pieces of Eight, has a monthly challenge. One member brings in an object for us to paint. Our first object was a toothbrush. This is my toothbrush painting, an homage to Dali, named TranscenDENTAL. An alternate title could be "Persistence of Tooth Decay." We are painting indoors lately because of the heat. Plein Air is now Hot and Humid Air and we are not into suffering. Speaking of suffering, my husband and I were weeding our yard at the same time our neighbor’s landscaper was working next door. He went on for hours without benefit of jumping into the pool frequently, which is what I was doing. I started thinking about all the tough people who work in this impossible heat: road workers, firemen, landscapers, masons, carpenters, roofers, painters…and our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are tormented by the heat, and I don’t know how they do it. Yard work makes me feel like I’m going to explode. To those who are out there, sweltering and miserable, for their families and their country, hot-weather heroes, I salute you!

The Bridge

This is a 36 x 24 oil painting, a commission for the new Cocoa City Hall. It is the Hubert H. Humphrey Bridge, which spans the Indian River, aka the Intracoastal Waterway. During the time I painted this, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays, and Karl Malden died, the governor of SC disgraced himself, and a teenager survived the crash of an airliner into the ocean. And with all that, we have been ridiculously saturated with the Michael Jackson news, since in the world of 24-hour news, enough is never enough. And if you don't have facts, just speculate. And when speculation gets old, interview an "expert" who will gladly drone on and on and on and on...

Lily of the Nile

This is my Agapanthus, or Lily of the Nile, which hardly ever blooms. Butterflies like it, and so do I.
I was listening to an old episode of "Gunsmoke" while painting a large and complex commission the other day. I used to be such a fan. Wouldn't it be nice to have a big tough authority figure in town like Matt Dillon, who always gets the bad guys, and ties up everything neatly in the end? Of course, after another of his successes, he goes down to the Long Branch to have a beer with Miss Kitty. As a kid, I didn't realize that Matt just might have a little problem with alcohol, and Miss Kitty was a woman of ill repute. I'd hate to see how all this would be depicted on TV today. Just let me remember Matt Dillon as a sort of Superman in cowboy boots.

Shameless Self-Promotion

My teenage grandchildren just read my little book, The Story of Cindy Rella, and they laughed out loud. This encouraged me to mention it once more. My friend, successful author Carol Jose, says to always mention the title of your book frequently to plant it in your readers' or listeners' minds, so check out my book, The Story of Cindy Rella, at Amazon.com. Just click here: The Story of Cindy Rella.

Bougainvillea, 6x8

It's a jungle out there...in my backyard, I mean. It's all so lush and green and blooming. And hot. For June, it is unbelievably hot. The pool is already like soup. What's it going to be like in August? It's a challenge in Florida at that time of year, between the heat and hurricane season. After two hurricanes pretty much destroyed our yard, I really lost interest in gardening for a long time, but have recuperated nicely. We have a loverly bunch of coconuts, papayas, tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant, peppers, lilies, bromeliads, philodendron, elephant ears, lantana, heliconia, palms, ferns, hibiscus...I could go on and on, and usually do, but it's time to get ready to join my Peeps the Pieces of Eight and do some painting and mutual uplifting.

Veggie Plate, 8x10

These are a few of my favorite things...this painting was done from a photo provided on the blog Different Strokes from Different Folks, where artists are encouraged to paint or draw their own interpretations.

I am so happy to have won First Place in the Miniature Show at the Art & Antique Studio in Melbourne last weekend, and two members of my painting group, Pieces of 8, won Second and Third Place! Click here to see our work.